Although I admire your impulse: the author explicitly says "inhabited the British colonies," i.e. the towns and cities and land under the jurisdiction of the co

Although I admire your impulse: the author explicitly says "inhabited the British colonies," i.e. the towns and cities and land under the jurisdiction of the colonial authorities. The native Americans were not under British control, and indeed made treaties with the colonists as foreign governments (which they were recognized as by the British and later US-Americans, although usually only when it suited them). I don't think "all of what is now the USA and Canada" is intended by the term "British colonies" in this piece. I really think they just mean the European settlements hugging the eastern seaboard -- hence the unadorned 200,000 figure.