Did the Europeans use smallpox against the Indians?

On March 21, 2009, The New York Times reported on Ward Churchill's lawsuit against the University of Colorado. A U of C committee dismissed him from his tenured position for what they found to be very serious acts of academic misconduct such as:

"he had no factual basis for...his theory....that Capt. John Smith purposefully introduced smallpox among the Wampanoag Indians in the 17th century."

Ward Churchill apparently:

"...cited writings of other scholars that he had actually ghostwritten, creating the illusion that there was a body of work supporting his theories."

In Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, author Jared Diamond doubts the Europeans had that sophisticated an understanding of disease transmission. Smallpox, measles, and influenza were introduced during the one hundred years of European contact prior to the time Ward Churchill alleges the Europeans tried to spread disease. Within a few years of these earlier contacts, these disease became a devastating pandemic among the native people who lacked immunity. Almost 90% of them died. Probably nothing the Europeans could have done would made things worse.

How might Madoff behaved had he met Wiesel in the camps?

I read Elie Wiesel's Night in my late adolescence. In it Wiesel describes how he was repeatedly and brutally robbed by fellow inmates, including having his gold fillings ripped out of his mouth.

How must Madoff's relatives and "friends" feel knowing that what Madoff did was to make Wiesel a victim again of the same type of predatory criminality that Wiesel suffered 65 years ago in the camps?

I find it easy to imagine Madoff behaving like the camp inmates who in return for the chance at a few more moments of life or a temporary privilege, betrayed other inmates to the Nazis, groveled to the guards, shoved their fellow inmates into the gas chambers then afterwards removed their bodies, and preyed on their fellow inmates, including the children like Wiesel, who were weaker, more vulnerable, and less able to defend themselves.