The Wikopedia account is an apt reminder of the inherent danger of getting fiction instead of fact from history not by historians but by contributors without qualifications or training who submit legend as if was history.
Remember that in the early years of Iowa Territory the capitol was Burlington, hence it was the center of politics. The Burlington News-Gazette was a rapid Whig journal, notable for its extreme natred of Jackson, Martinn Van Buren & the Democrats. They were in panic over the emerging vast popularity of Hawkeye as symbol of the Democrats and the Lucas administration's use of the symbol. The editors concocted the Blackhawk story as a not very well conceived effort to capitalize on Iowan's awareness of how the Jackson administration had dragged the Indian warrior in chains for public display in Washington, Philadelphia, New York, etc before exciling him to a small reservation-type site near what is now Centerville,Iowa.
But the Blackhawk version is almost comic in its obvious flaws: Blackhawk and Hawkeye are not exactly the same name. Blackhawk was not a chief. His band lived in Nothwest Illinois, and when it became a state in 1818 the band's leaders signed a treaty in which the agreed to move into Wisconsin Territory, including the part that became Iowa. The existing Indian tribes in both iowa & Wisonsin were not welcoming and years later a young warrior, Blackhawk leads a group including women & chidren back across the Mississippi. At which time, the Illinois militia (including Lt Abe Lincoln) arer mobilized, and they spend the next several months chasing Blackhawk & his group all over Southern Wisconsin until exhausted & starving they surrender (Lincoln long before this gets tired of the chasing about and goes home).
It wasn't until AFTER the US govt sends Blackhawk as a prisoner to Southern Iowa that Blackhawk ever spent and real time or fought settlers or militia ever in Iowa. Blackhawk's last years were spents in frequent moves abound Iowa: he is known to have spent time in Burlington, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City (ironically whether he spent time in Blackhawk County is not a matter of record, and similarly his burial site is not clearly established--somewhere in Eastern Iowa).
In short, the News-Gazette's hasty fable was a poor piece work from the outset---but like so much of political mythology it keeps getting resurrected. In the 19th Century, Republicans found it useful to champion Blackhawk & debunk Hawkeye; occasionally in the 20th Crentury some envious soul at Moo U has dug it up in order to suggest that the State Universityy of Iowa (SUI for 80% of its existence) was pulling a con job by claiming that the Hawkeye State has something to do with Hawkeye.
