James Monroe (New York politician) several children. His paternal 2x-great grandfather, Patrick Andrew Monroe, emigrated to America from Scotland in the mid-17th century. In 1650, he patented a large tract of land in Washington Parish, Westmoreland County, Virginia. Among James Monroe's ancestors were French Huguenot immigrants, who came to Virginia in 1700. Monroe graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1815, and was commissioned in the Artillery Corps. Shortly after graduating, he was sent to fight in the war with Algiers, and was wounded while serving as a gunnery officer on board the USS "Guerriere". From 1817 to 1822, he served as aide-de-camp to
James Monroe Trotter African Americans. His son William Monroe Trotter became a rights activist and was founder and editor of the "Boston Guardian", a progressive African American newspaper. James Monroe Trotter was born on February 7, 1842, twenty-five miles south of Vicksburg in the once-thriving community of Grand Gulf, Mississippi, in Claiborne County, Mississippi, although some sources give Trotter's date of birth as November 8, 1842. James was born into slavery; his mother Letitia was a slave and his father was her white master, Richard S. Trotter, then unmarried. After Richard Trotter married in 1854, he freed Letitia and their mixed-race children: James