In the final years of the Republic, Shmi Skywalker was a slave on Tatooine. Originally the property of Gardulla the Hutt, she and her son Anakin belonged to the Toydarian junk merchant Watto. Shmi taught Anakin to be kind to others, though she worried about his love of the fast, dangerous sport of podracing.

Anakin vowed to help the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn when he was trapped on Tatooine. Qui-Gon discovered Anakin’s incredible strength with the Force, and Shmi revealed the strange truth about her son’s parentage: There had been no father.

Qui-Gon suspected that Anakin was the Chosen One foretold by ancient Jedi prophecy, and decided the Force had meant him to find Anakin and bring him to Coruscant for training in the Jedi Order. But first Anakin had to win his freedom. As Shmi watched anxiously, her son prevailed in the dangerous podrace known as the Boonta Eve Classic.

Honoring the terms of his bet with Qui-Gon, Watto freed Anakin from slavery, but refused to give Shmi her freedom. Wanting a better life for her son, Shmi urged him to go with Qui-Gon and not look back.

Over the next decade Anakin grew in strength as a Padawan in the Jedi Order, but he was haunted by being parted from his mother and worried about her fate. He was plagued by nightmares of Shmi in peril, and traveled to Tatooine with Padmé Amidala to find out what had happened to her.

Anakin discovered that a moisture farmer named Cliegg Lars had bought Shmi from Watto, freed her, and married her. But when he visited the Lars farm, he learned Tusken Raiders had kidnapped his mother. Anakin found Shmi, but she died in his arms. Giving in to his rage, he slaughtered the Tuskens who had taken her.

Anakin buried Shmi in the sand at the Lars farm, and swore that he would grow so powerful with the Force that he would be able to stop the people he loved from dying. His unwise vow would leave him even more vulnerable to seduction by the dark side of the Force, with dark consequences for the Jedi Order and the galaxy.

While on the mysterious planet Mortis, Anakin experienced a vision of his mother. Time had done nothing to ease Anakin’s pain, and his memories of losing Shmi would make him doubly determined to prevent the death of his wife Padmé Amidala – a fear the Sith Lord Darth Sidious would exploit.