Japanese Confucian scholar and politician Hakuseki Arai (1657-1725) certainly wrote Seiyō Kibun in 3 volumes, mainly based on his interrogation record on Italian Jesuit missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti (d. 1714) [as well as apparently Dutch informants] some , and it also includes a short paragraphs on both North and South Americas (called ノヲルト・アメリカ (Noord Amerika) and ソイデ・アメリカ (Suid(e) Amerika) apparently in the local rendering of Dutch pronunciation) among various countries across the Globe.

Thus, his work is not a first-hand account of the New World, rather a reception of European knowledge of the world at that period (Compared with the section on SE Asian and "African" countries (Ottoman Empire occupied its most part), Hakuseki does not show special interest in Americas, based on the relative length of the section)), though he sometimes compare alleged Siddotti's information with the world map (Kunyu Wanguo Quantu『坤輿萬國全圖』) brought to the Asians by Jesuit Matteo Ricci in 1602 as well as some other (newer) Dutch world map. Actually he describes rather on "Nova Hollandia" (Australia) in details, with some interesting comments/ attitude of Sidotti.

While this Seiyō Kibun had not officially been published before Meiji Reformation in 1868 and its copy & circulation had been forbidden at least in the 18th century Japan, the work was actually permitted to be circulated and read in the last few decades in Edo Period in the 19th century.

+++

Anyway, the following very brief passages are the excerpted summary of the First peoples in north and south Americas in Seiyō Kibun:

• "ノーワ・フランスヤ (Nova Francia?, Latinized form of Nouvelle France (?)) [in Chinese, rendered as 新拂郞察] is located in north-western Northern America, and is a very fertile land. It is also said to have been conquered and founded as a country/ colony by the French. In my [Hakuseki's] understanding, this land is very large, and its customs are wooden and stone and its people are living together with birds and animals. Not a small number of cases are such foundations of countries/ colonies as a consequence of the military conquest by the Europeans......"
• "バラシリア (Barasilia [Brazil]) is a eastern part of south America. This land is very wild but large, and all of its eastern, southern, and northern fringe face the ocean. Custom of its people are: Some dwell on the wood, others dwell in the cave, and they like to commit cannibalism. On the island in the sea north to this land, called St. Hencent (?), Tobacco is said to be cultivated......I suppose, however, that Christianity is also practiced in this region, since the secret European document I've seen mention the battle between the Dutch and the local people and the former's victory, the practice of Christianity there."

A few Jesuits are also certainly known to keep on the imperial courts in Beijing in Qing China from the late 17th to the 18th centuries and some cultural exchanges like the comparison of historical writings and musics also happened there (Cf. Arai 2017), but I know not enough on the possible reception of this kind of geographical knowledge by the Chinese intellectuals after Matteo Ricci's case, sorry.

References:

• Seiyō Kibun on Wikisource: https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/西洋紀聞

+++

• ARAI, Yoko. Jesuit Missionaries and Universal Empire: Translating the civilization by the Christian missionaries in China (Iezusu Kaishi to Fuhen no Teikoku). Nagoya: Nagoya UP, 2017. (in Japanese)
• CAMPANA, Maurizio. "Western Studies of Arai Hakuseki and its Development by the Encounter with Giovanni Sidotti." Shisen 107 (2008): 1-18. (In Japanese) http://hdl.handle.net/10112/11743

(Edited): improves a clumsy translation of the source at least a little.