During the Columbian exchange, European diseases such as smallpox and measles were introduced to the New World, where people had not built up any immunity to them. As a result, native populations in the New World were decimated. As the source from Yale (see the link below) states, it is estimated that the Arawak population on the island of Hispaniola declined from a million to 15,000 from 1492 to 1520.
The Columbian exchange might be considered bioterrorism because it involved using diseases as a weapon. However, as the educators above state, the introduction of European diseases into the New World, while deadly to the point of wiping out what had been vibrant, healthy populations, falls short of bioterrorism because the Europeans were not aware of germs and were unaware that they were introducing these diseases to the native people they encountered. As the source below states, the effect of these...
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diseases was more deadly than guns, and the result was that the native population was rendered incapable of doing labor for the Spaniards. As a consequence, the Spaniards turned to enslaving people from Africa.
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An interesting idea; as smallpox, etc. devastated native American populations, sometimes wiping out entire cultures. Jared Diamond makes this point quite well in Guns, Germs and Steel. One of the more ironic elements is that large numbers of people died who never came into contact with Europeans; the diseases were that pervasive.
A problem with considering the entire exchange as biological warfare is that by and large, Europeans did not intend to use germ warfare to destroy these people; it was an incidental and to a large extent unintended consequence. One should also consider the fact that the Indians returned the favor: syphilis was unknown in Europe until European sailors and explorers intermingled with the Indians; yet again, however, this was an incidental and unintended consequence. That being the case, I'm not sure "biological terrorism" is the proper term.
There was at least one incident in which germ warfare is unquestionably the term: settlers at Jamestown gave Indians blankets which they knew to be infected with smallpox in a deliberate attempt to spread the disease. Other than this one incident (when the poison they otherwise would have used wasn't available) I'm not sure the entire exchange qualifies.
The Columbian Exchange could be seen in this way because it included the introduction of germs to the New World. These germs caused huge levels of mortality among natives of the Americas because they had never been exposed to those germs before. Some scholars believe that as many as 90% of Native Americans were killed by diseases from the Old World. Others put the mortality at 50%. Regardless of which of these numbers is accurate, you can see why some might call this bioterrorism. By introducing their germs (albeit unknowingly, at first) to the New World, Europeans caused the deaths of huge numbers of people.