As every good quizzer should know, Hawkeye is the name of the central character in James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel, The Last of the Mohicans. According to the Readers Digest, Iowa's nickname "is believed to have come from the name of [this] character ... Two men who were promoting the state pushed the name into popularity, the story goes, and the nickname was approved as official in 1838, eight years before Iowa became a state."
State Symbols USA disagrees: "Iowa's nickname is ... a tribute to chief Black Hawk, leader of the native American Sauk tribe (relocated to Iowa after unsuccessful fighting of settlers)."
Wikipedia agrees with the latter: "Iowa's nickname (Hawkeye State) was originally adopted in 1838 after paying tribute to Chief Black Hawk." There is no citation for this claim however; and neither State Symbols USA nor Wikipedia explains why the nickname is the Hawkeye State and not the Black Hawk State.
Born in 1767 in what is now Rock Island, Illinois, Chief Black Hawk fought on the side of the British in the War of 1812, hoping to drive the white American settlers out of Sauk territory. He was captured by American forces after the war; shortly before his release he told his life story to an interpreter, and the resulting book – the first Native American autobiography to be published in the USA – became an immediate best–seller.
He died in 1838, in what is now part of Iowa; and this does seem to tie in with the state's nickname being adopted in the same year.
Wikipedia has a long list of places and things that are named after Chief Black Hawk, including the Sikorsky UH–60 Black Hawk helicopter – which in turn gave its name to the Oscar–winning 2001 film Black Hawk Down, directed by Ridley Scott.
Readers Digest and State Symbols USA both state that Iowa is also known as the Corn State, because of its vast corn farmland – 90% of its land being devoted to agriculture.
© Haydn Thompson 2021