this idea tying black people to dirty monkeys is really post-evolutionary and largely post-slavery, reconstruction period deep south bible belt ignorance.
the greeks called the blacks ethiopians, often with the homeric epithet snub-nosed ethiopians, because they thought they were so badly sunburned that they turned black, like a chicken in the fire. it's clear from the mythology that the greeks explored africa and decided it wasn't worth it, but kept their colonies on the coasts of southern europe, west asia and north africa. the romans fought wars down the nile and lost but managed to convert them to christianity, like they converted the germans. there is evidence of them sailing down both sides of the coast of africa. on the west, there are colonies well down the atlantic coast and they knew there was a bend around west africa. on the east, they made it to the south african coast but don't seem to have circumnavigated it. roman maps from antiquity have the island of madagascar on it. there were expeditions to find the source of the nile and the written records indicate they got to the great lakes but turned back due to the climate. there is evidence of roman settlement around lake tchad. they describe wildlife in the niger river delta. african traders brought goods into the empire from the desert and beyond and there's no indication they were seen differently than arabs, indians or any other non-european traders.
by the time the spaniards were driving the muslims out of spain, the arabs had been enslaving west africa for 1000 years. they don't teach you about the other part of the reconquista, the part that failed until the french did it, which was the reconquest of northern africa. standing in southern europe in the year 1450, you didn't see this natural geographic barrier across the pillars of hercules separating europe from africa and christian from muslim, you saw the carthaginian part of rome half reconquered and half still held by barbarians and usurpers. the entirety of north africa, from egypt to the atlantic, was roman. the spanish fully intended to finish the job by conquering morocco, algeria, tunisia and libya and rechristianizing and reromanizing it but they just failed to. had they not discovered america instead, they probably would have. this is where tying blacks to slavery develops, when the spanish began to participate in the islamic slave trade and expanded it to america, but it was really about religion, and not about race.