Pieter Cnoll, also known as Pieter Knoll (d. 1672), was a Dutch merchant who was employed by the

United East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock co ...

(VOC). Cnoll, who was born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, joined the VOC's accounting department at some point before 1647 and was sent to the

East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around t ...

to work as a clerk in

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

at the city castle. He soon rose to the rank of junior merchant and in 1652 married

Cornelia van Nijenroode Cornelia van Nijenroode (1629 1692) was a Dutch merchant in the Dutch East Indies, famous for her conflict with her second husband. Life Van Nijenroode was born in Hirado, Japan, to Cornelis van Nijenroode (d. 1633), the manager of the Dut ...

, an

Indo Indo may refer to: * Indo-, a prefix indicating India or the Indian Subcontinent * Indonesia, a country in Asia ** INDO LINES, callsign of Indonesian Airlines ** Indo people, people of mixed European and Indonesian ancestry ** Indo cuisine, fusion ...

businesswoman who was the daughter of Cornelis van Nijenroode, a VOC opperhoofden in Japan. In 1665, artist

Jacob Jansz. Coeman Jacob Jansz. Coeman (Amsterdam? ca 1632- 9 April 1676, Batavia, Dutch East Indies) was a Dutch painter of portraits. Coeman worked in the style of Thomas de Keyser. In 1655 he married Hester Wils, either from Haarlem or Den Briel. His father li ...

painted a portrait of Cnoll's family and enslaved servants. Together, Cnoll and his wife had ten children, with only one surviving to adulthood, a son. Cnoll died in 1672, and left his entire estate in his

last will and testament A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property ( estate) is to be distributed after their death and as to which person (executor) is to manage the property until its final distributio ...

to van Nijenroode. In 1675, she remarried to a Dutchman named Johann Bitter at the age of 46, but the marriage was an unhappy one and she filed for divorce not soon after. She died in 1692 in the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

, where she had travelled to in order to secure the divorce from the appropriate authorities. One of the fifty slaves Cnoll owned was an Indonesian man named

Untung Surapati Untung Suropati also Untung Surapati (1660 – December 5, 1706) was an Indonesia war fighter who led a few rebellions against the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Some of his exploits were written in Babad Tanah Jawi. Early life Surapat ...

, who was possibly featured in Coeman's 1665 portrait.

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* * * {{Authority control 1672 deaths 17th-century Dutch businesspeople Businesspeople from Amsterdam Dutch slave owners People of the Dutch East Indies