I think that racist doctrines - advanced under the banner of science - actually were a development of The Enlightenment. This is not to say that there wasn’t ethnic chauvinism and rivalry prior to that, but it assumed a new quality during the scientific revolution.
One has to be an intellectual to believe the paramecium to man fairy tale. But the answer is yes.
The doctrines of that age were reflective of the cultural norms of the time. Enlightenment was birthed from European mercantilism and the formation of vast global trade networks that brought goods and peoples from across the globe to Europe and by extension the American colonies. Prior to these trade networks, Europeans would possibly have heard of Africans but very few would have ever seen one. The technology gap between Africans and Europeans would also feed the false belief of white skinned men being a superior being in contrast to the African. Couple this with the slave trade and you have a perfect storm of bias.