Erasmus of Rotterdam 125 American troops were victims of the disease during a campaign in Quebec George Washington successfully had the susceptible American troops inoculated British troops, who had grown up in England and Ireland, had immunity to the disease By the time George Vancouver explored the Pacific coasts of what would become Washington State and the Province of British Columbia, he found entire villages of Native Americas in ruins and deserted with skeletons lying all around By the 20th century, smallpox had wiped out as much as 90 percent of the preconquest Native American population In sum, the impact of hitherto unknown European diseases on indigenous societies unleashed a demographic cataclysm across the Western Hemisphere, representing one of the most important chapters in the history of the postconquest Americas, whose characteristics and impacts scholars are still grappling to comprehend Further reading: Alchon, Suzanne Austin Native Society and Disease in Colonial Ecuador Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; Cook, Noble David Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; Cook, Noble David, and W George Lovell, eds Secret Judgments of God: Native Peoples and Old World Disease in Colonial Spanish America Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992; Hopkins, Donald R The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002; Tucker, Jonathan B Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001 Nancy Pippen Eckerman and Michael J Schroeder Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) Renaissance humanist and writer Desiderius Erasmus was an internationally acclaimed celebrity and the greatest European scholar during the 16th century Despite the polemics of the Protestant Reformation, he could make friends among kings and lords in every land and on all sides of the central questions of his day, and this trait led him to reside in Holland, France, England, Switzerland, and Italy His pursuit of Christian humanism and his intellectual curiosity led into a lifetime of travel and writing, seeking to promote the values of the Italian Renaissance in northern Europe Erasmus was born in Rotterdam on October 27, 1466, as an illegitimate child His father was Roger Gerard, For Erasmus, virtue came not from religious ritual, but in each person’s desire and ability to emulate the life of Christ who later became a priest, and his mother Margaret, the daughter of a physician One of the major Catholic renewal groups of the Low Countries, the Brethren of the Common Life, adopted him and no doubt generated in him an unpretentious and broadminded orientation toward spirituality For the rest of his life, Erasmus never was enticed by the outward show of formal religion, whether it came from Catholic pomp or Protestant sectarianism He never held an office in the church, even though he was offered the cardinal’s hat by the pope; he also rejected the pandemonium caused by the likes of Martin Luther, Henry VIII, and Ulrich Zwingli At first, he spent time in a religious order, though he probably chafed at requirements that he remain in a monastery under a superior What attracted him were the disciplined study and fraternal companionship a monastic life afforded He found an excuse to leave when he took up a position with a local bishop and later obtained permission to study theology in Paris It was not theology that interested him as much as the life of