Explain why New England—where few slaveholders lived—was involved in a triangular trade that sold and transported millions of enslaved Africans.

New England was rich in wood (ship building), fish, furs. These raw materials were traded between Europe, England for finished goods, sugar from West Indies, tobacco and cotton from southern colonies.

The sugar, molasses, cotton and tobacco trade increased demand for slave labor to cultivate said crops.

Molasses fermented into rum was done in Europe and later in New England. Rum became a major export commodity for New England opportunists; put in casks made from their wood mills, along with the shipbuilding connections.

Sorry the snippet of map illustrating the many triangles of trade is not larger.