Question: I'm currently working on a novel, in which one of the POV characters is a slave. He was born to a slave (so he was born a slave) of a rich merchant family and was treated well most of his life. One day he travels with his master to a foreign country where slavery had been abolished. The interaction with the foreign "free" people makes him doubt his position.

Might be relevant that he is of a different race than his masters, and the population of the foreign country he travels to belongs to his race.

Initially I want him to not see the injustice in his state and to love his master (they have a close relationship since they grew up together), yet I (born into a *mostly* slave-free world) have no idea how to portray him. Almost anything I try to write about him feels contrived. 

How could I better identify with him? 

or 

Any reference to a novel (historical fiction preferred, could be any period in history) with a slave POV character (third-person preferred) will do.

Answer: 
Sounds like from the description, you are writing a "slave narrative." This was a popular literary genre in the US around the Civil War. It can either be fiction or non-fiction. One of the most famous examples and my personal suggestion is the *Life of Fredrick Douglas*. He was born a slave and later became a leader in the American Abolition Movement.

What I learned from his book is that freedom isn't inherently obvious. Before Douglas was taught to read by his master, he was very happy as a slave. His realization that he was a free-born person came slowly over time and then he was compelled to run away as slavery became an unbearable condition. The problem was not that his master was cruel, but the knowledge about the alternative. That seems to a theme in your book, so that's why I suggest it as a starting place for your research.

The WPA's Federal Writer's Project did 2300 interviews ex-slaves during the Great Depression. That research is available [here.](http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html) That seems like a great resource to understand what the average slave thought about slavery.
I recently read a novel with this very theme: ["The Story of Jonas"](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/maurine-f-dahlberg/the-story-of-jonas/). However, while the book was quite well written, I personally found that aspect of it --the slave who doesn't initially question his servitude --to be implausible. A better example might be Ursula LeGuin's *[The Tombs of Atuan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tombs_of_Atuan)* whose main character does not initially understand that she is oppressed because she has been led to believe she is favored.

My advice to you would be to emphasize the indoctrination process. People don't come into this world believing they are born to be servile, they learn to believe it because that's what people tell them. Show how everyone around him is constantly telling your protagonist how lucky he is, and how well-treated, and how he has advanced as high up as anyone from his race and background possibly could. 

Then, when he sees counter-examples to the propaganda, you can contrast those with what he has always been told. This also offers a narrative opportunity to drive a wedge between slave and beloved master, when they respond with opposite emotions and reactions to the discovery of a functional free society composed entirely of people from the protagonists' group.