By Cor Snabel

In the notarial archives of Rotterdam we found a few remarkable documents about a little girl.

On 21 January 1687, Catharina Tentenier, the widow of the wood merchant Dirck de With, went to notary Daniel de Olyslager to have her testament made up. Her daughter Catharina would inherit 5000 guilders and all her clothes, jewelery, and personal effects.

But Catharina had another daughter, Aletta, who she cut out of her will. This Aletta was determined to fight for her share of the inheritance. In 1704 we find Aletta at the same notary office, bringing witnesses who had known her as a little girl. First, a woman who had worked as a servant at her parents' house in Rotterdam. Also four neighbors from Rotterdam, and a servant who had worked about twenty years ago for her aunt in Amsterdam. They all testified that her sister Catharina was her mothers' favorite and that Aletta was badly mistreated. Her mother claimed that Aletta had been switched for another girl by the wetnurse, and that the child had tried to poison her when she was twelve years old. But the most shocking testimony was, that when Aletta was five years old, her mother had shipped her in a box from Rotterdam to her sister Aletta Tentenier in Amsterdam, where she was also mistreated.