Nicholson next served as the first royal governor of South Carolina from 1721 to 1725. The colonists had rebelled against the rule of the proprietors, and Nicholson was appointed in response to their request for crown governance. The rebellion had been prompted by inadequate response by the proprietors to Indian threats, so Nicholson brought with him some British troops. He established a council composed primarily of supporters of the rebellion, and gave it significant latitude to control colonial affairs. As he had in some of his other posts, he used enforcement of the Navigation Acts as a means to crack down on political opposition. He established local governments modeled on those he set up in Maryland and Virginia, including the 1722 incorporation of Charleston. He expended both public money and his own to further both education and the Church of England, and introduced ground-breaking judicial administration into the colony. He negotiated agreements and territorial boundaries with the Cherokee, and promoted trade, pursuing policies similar to those he had advocated while in Maryland and Virginia. He introduced a commissioner of Indian affairs into the colonial government, a post that survived until the crown assumed the duties of managing Indian affairs in the 1750s.