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THE BEGINNING (1896): BOARMAN’S REST​
Long before there was a campus… there was Boarman’s Rest. Officially, the land was known as the Boarman Plantation, tucked quietly along the Chesapeake Bay, just far enough from the Capitol to be ignored—but close enough to watch power carefully.
Unofficially? It was a miracle. The Black people who lived there were called “enslaved” on paper. In reality, every single person held their manumission papers. Boarman’s Rest was a collective, a sanctuary disguised as obedience. Families farmed, built, taught, healed, and saved -pooling money, knowledge, and strategy. The Underground Railroad didn’t run through Boarman’s Rest.
It operated from it.
The land was stewarded by Eleanor Boarman, an abolitionist and descendant of the first recorded interracial marriage in the American colonies. Her family passed as white for survival, but never severed their African ancestry. Instead, they worked in silence—funding escape routes, housing freedom-seekers, and building wealth that was never meant to last forever.
It was meant to launch something bigger.
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Original oil Painting of Borman's Rest circa 1856
Manumission Papers signed by E. Boarman for Annie Joice Harbard
PANTHER PORTAL
THE FOUNDING MOTHERS​
In 1896, five Black women gathered under a sycamore tree at Boarman’s Rest and asked a dangerous question:
“What if our daughters never had to start from nothing again?” Their names were:
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Charlotte Smith – strategist, bookkeeper, community brain
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Annie Joice Harbard – educator, archivist, memory-keeper
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Sue “Sukie” Diggs – organizer, fundraiser, certified talker
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Consola Henson – builder, engineer, logistics queen
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Maria Amalia Martín – healer, linguist, bridge between worlds
They were freed women. Some formerly enslaved. Some born free. All brilliant. All tired of temporary safety. With the collective wealth of Boarman’s Rest, and the labor of what history later called “The Tribe Dads”—Black men who built dorms, gardens, libraries, and wells, they founded TRIBE UNIVERSITY. Not as a reaction to oppression. But as an inheritance to all Black Girls, past, present and future.
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Portrait of The Founding Mother's circa 1908: from left to right, C. Smith, A. Harbard, S. Diggs, C. Henson and M. Martin
THE FIRST PRESIDENT
Eleanor Boarman became the first President and chief funder—not as a savior, but as a steward.
Her first address to students was famously short: “This land was protected so you could dream loudly.”
Then she handed the keys to the women. Eleanor was married to an previously enslaved man by the name
of Charles. Together they raised 21 children including 14 girls who all matriculated through
Tribe University.
Her endowment to the school provides EVERY admitted student with a scholarship that subsidizes
the cost of attendance for every student by 40%. This is known as our Legacy Scholarship.
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PRESENT DAY
Today, President Gabrielle “Ms. Gabbi” Martinez stands at the helm. She is a direct descendant of
Eleanor Boarman and her "salt water Negro" husband Charles. After graduating from TU herself in 2011 she went
on to be a professor at other colleges and universities in cluding, Howard, Harvard, Yale, hampton, and NYU.
However she quickly returned to TU to serve where "she belonged." She didn’t inherit TRIBE U.
She reawakened it. Under her leadership:
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Majors were redesigned for the future
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Wellness became sacred
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Joy became policy
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Black Girlhood became the curriculum
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Endowments have risen 700%
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Tribe University is the #1 Ranked Historically Black Girl College or University, globally.
Our Alumnae lead boardrooms, classrooms, courtrooms, halls of congress, studios and stages around the world. Welcome to The Legacy!​​​​​​​