Cornelis van Nijenroode

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Cornelis van Nijenroode was chief factor of the Dutch East India Company operations in Japan from 1623 to 1632. He was the fifth to hold that post.[1] During his time in Japan, he had relationships with two courtesans of the Maruyama district, and had a daughter with each. With one woman, known only as Surishia, Nijenroode had a daughter in 1630 who they named Cornelia. She went on to have an active life in the Dutch East Indies. With the other woman, Tokeshio, he had a daughter named Esther.

Prior to his time in Japan, van Nijenroode spent some time in Ayutthaya (Siam).[2]

He died in 1633. Cornelia's mother Surishia then married the Hirado-based merchant Handa Goemon.

References

  • Amy Stanley, Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan, UC Press (2012), 77.
  • Gary Leupp, Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900, A&C Black (2003), 117.
  1. Gallery labels, Dutch Trading Post, Hirado.
  2. Cesare Polenghi, Samurai of Ayutthaya: Yamada Nagamasa, Japanese warrior and merchant in early seventeenth-century Siam. Bangkok: White Lotus Press (2009), 37.