Named after the great war chieftain Bacca the first Chieftain of the Wookies. He was born on the lush forest planet Kashyyyk, to the proud warrior Attichitcuk. At a young age Chewbacca differed greatly from his Wookiee clan. The Wookies by nature remained in the safety of their forest kingdom, but Chewbacca would often venture far from it in search of adventure and challenges. Before he reached the age of 100, Chewbacca had already left the planet many times, but always returned for the holidays.

Chewbacca became a very skilled mechanic and natural navigator, and won over the favour of fellow Wookiee Malla. However the warrior Tojjevvuk also had interest in Malla's hand and sparked a deadly duel with Chewbacca for her hand in marriage. Tojjevvuk broke the sacred rules of dueling and used his claws in the battle, but Chewbacca's agility and strength allowed him to maneuver his way out of danger resulting in the death of Tojjevvuk by pushing him into the Shadowlands where he was promptly killed by the creatures that lurked below.

Chewbacca was captured by Trandoshan trophy hunters in the second year of the clone wars, but alongside Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano, and two Jedi Younglings, they defeated their captors and contacted the Wookie's to make an emergency rescue. Chewbacca then played a key role in the Clone Wars as he was already a highly respected warrior and navigator of his people. He helped in organizing and deploying Clone soldiers across Kashyyyk knowing all the weakest points and best defensive areas. He personally assisted Jedi Knight Quinlan Vos in the Great Kashyyyk assault. After Order 66 had been issued, Chewbacca and General Tarfful helpled Yoda escape the planet.

After the battle for Kashyyyk had concluded, Chewbacca was called upon to assist a small squadron of Rouge Jedi attempting to flee the newly founded Empire. The Empire had tracked the Jedi to Kashyyyk and Lord Vader was personally deployed to find them. The Wookies put up a valiant fight, but were utterly defeated. After the defeat, Vader ordered the bombardment of Kashyyyk, which leveled the once beautiful Wookiee cities and left them a burning waste. During the attempt to escape, Jedi Knight Roan Shryne faced Vader alone to allow Chewbacca and Olee to escape with several wounded survivors.

Chewbacca and Olee became partners aboard the ship the Drunk Dancer. Chewbacca began attacking and raiding small Imperial targets in attempt to get revenge for Kashyyyk. Chewbacca was once again captured by slavers, and sold to Ssoh. In the holding areas the Wookies had developed clans and often fought amongst themselves. Enraged Chewbacca delivered a powerful speech that caused the Wookies to band together and escape the slave hold on Ssoh's ship. Ssoh attempted to stop the escaping Wookies, but promptly had his arms and legs torn from their sockets by an Enraged Chewbacca. Ssoh was the only known creature to survive a hand-to-hand fight with a Wookiee.

Chewbacca now began small strikes and raids on Imperial targets known to be transporting Wookies as slaves. In a botched attempt to save Wookiee slaves, Chewbacca came face to face with Imperial commander Pter Nyklas who re-captured all the Wookies with the aid of TIE pilot Lieutenant Han Solo. Nyklas ordered Solo to kill Chewbacca who had been knocked unconscious. Solo refused and stunned Nyklas and escaped with Chewbacca leaving the Empire behind him and becoming fast friends and partner with Chewbacca.

The two began doing small bounty missions and spice runs with the famous Kessel run in under 12 parsecs. The two then had a very unlucky run where they were forced to drop their spice shipment due to Imperial pursuit. This landed a heavy price on their heads from Jabba the Hutt. After some success, Han Solo won their ship the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian. Its first maiden voyage was to Chebacca's homeworld Kashyyyk, where he promptly married Malla and fathered Lumpawarrump. After that Chewbacca and Han took on many missions together, but seemed to hit a run of bad luck. Finally they took on a smuggling job for 10,000 credits, but found out it was transporting slaves. Unable to continue on with their job, they released the Wookie slaves who unfortunately also belonged to Jabba.

The same year, the two were contacted by Jabba to secure the priceless Yavin Vassilika and found themselves in a desperate race with bounty hunter Boba Fett, Bossk long time enemy of Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian. After a long search, Han and Chewbacca found themselves at a dead end. They were heavily pursued by Bossk who sought to kill them and claim the bounty, so they had to call off the mission. The Vassilika was later found by Han's old flame Bria Tharen. It was after this that the two went nearly broke again that they met Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and young Luke Skywalker looking to charter a flight to Alderaan.