On February 5, 1698, Nicholas Trott was appointed as the first attorney general of South Carolina during its time as a British colony.

[3] Alexander Moultrie, half-brother of Revolutionary War figure and future governor William Moultrie, was named the state's first attorney general under its first state "president", John Rutledge, in 1776.

Moultrie was impeached and resigned in 1792 for diverting state funds into the Yazoo land company fraud.

Republican Robert B. Elliott served briefly in this situation under Republican governor Daniel Henry Chamberlain, while James Conner held office under fellow Confederate officer and Democrat Wade Hampton III.

The colonial province of South Carolina was first organized under a royal governor in 1720.