Background
She was the daughter of Cornelis van Nijenroode (d 1633), the manager of the Dutch trade station at Hirado, and his Japanese concubine Surishia.
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Cornelia Nijenroode
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She is the subject of Leonard Blussé"s Bitter Bonds: A Colonial Divorce Drama of the Seventeenth Century. Through her unhappy second marriage, she lost the right to manage her own property and business to her spouse, who wished to control her finances, which caused a severe conflict. Johan Bitter returned to the Netherlands in 1680, but returned as a councilor of the legal court in 1683, and their conflict over the control of her fortune caused such a public scandal that they were both exiled from the colony by the governor Johannes Camphuys in 1688.
She has been referred to as a typical example of the independent Eurasian women of the Dutch colonial empire.
